On Saturday 10 January 2004 15.56, Tobias Weisserth wrote:
Hi there,
...
An additional hint: buy a nic that takes away stress from the CPU. Cheaper NICs leave much work to the CPU, like those Realtek chipsets. This is not a problem with fast CPUs but you'll notice the difference on weaker machines, like the battered Pentiums that route my network. A 3COM or Intel is usually a good choice. True - modern NICs have there own HW to offload the CPU.
Go down to the computer store and find a SMALL (5port) 10/100 switch (or hub).
Don't buy a hub. Buy a switch.
Again, true - a true hub only supports 10Mbps at half duplex. A good switch provides support for 100Mbps as well, including full duplex ie sending and receiving data at the same time. With a modern NIC you can take advantage of full duplex at 10MBps as well. Another advantage is microsegmentation of the network. Every switch port is in its own ethernet collision domain. This mean you will have less collisions and a cleaner traffic pattern in your network. A hub is just a dumb box with all ports in the same collison domain. You need Cat5 or better cabling to take advantage of full duplex communication. //RegardsTony